Header Right

Serving Denominations Rather Than God

I caught this collection of quotes coming across my Google Reader. While I suspect these comments come from a critical spirit, there is something we can learn about being Baptist.

“Having attended several denominations, and read/heard about many others (mostly Protestant), I’ve concluded one thing they all have in common is they are all wrong — doctrinally — about something. One of my biggest frustrations is that so many denominations serve their denomination as much as their God. I don’t think church growth should be a goal. I don’t think denomination status, tithes, attendance, etc., should be priorities.”

“The world in need needs a sign that people of Christian faith care for more than themselves and their need to be right.”

What do you think? Are denominations stumbling blocks when we share Jesus? Are we, as SBCers as bad as these people seem to think?

Get New Posts by Email

Reader Interactions

Comments

There are a few issues in which our denomination is more prideful, cultural and/or traditional than biblical… for example:
1) our blindness, hardness, and/or rejection of many passages that teach a much more sovereign view of God in salvation than our SBC methodology allows…
2) our belief that every mention of wine in the Bible was grape juice, and that the disciples and Jesus certainly never drank real wine! (so all wine drinkers today are sinners!)…
3) our continual usage of our large membership numbers even though weekly attendance is half to one-fourth of that…
4) our prideful, boastful style of leadership in so many visible positions of leadership (with a few exceptions)… so opposite from Jesus and His command that we not lord it over the people as the Gentiles do…
5) our loyalty to Southern culture and Republican politics in the church (and I love the South and vote Republican)
6) our desire for large numbers to the point that we adopt any new methodology or program that gets our numbers up, even if it isn’t biblical
7)…

There is a reason I am an SBC pastor, we are for the most part conservative in our approach to Scripture, but outside of that, we are a mess…

I feel like many of our Baptist leaders are more concerned with preserving traditionally held Baptist distinctives (or rather what they think are traditionally held Baptist distinctives) than with the gospel. They criticize those who try to reach across denominational lines to work together with other gospel-minded people.

@ John: Thanks for your comments. I like the phrase you used “gospel-minded people.” I think that is the key to avoiding the impressions that these people have about SBCers. If we are dealing with God every day about our own sin, and living dependent on his grace then we will never be prideful. In fact, we might really love others and have compassion (not judgment) toward their lostness. That compassion for others (resulting from God’s compassion toward us) will always lead to sharing Jesus with them. Then we will be “gospel-minded people.”

All denominatians are wrong in some areas. We would be pathetically arrogant to think otherwise. But, we, the SBC, does a lot more good than bad. If I felt the SBC did more damage than good than I would leave, happily. Any time you get a group of people together, Especially 5 million, you are going to get things wrong and occasionally get in the way of yourselves. For the most part I say that being a part of a denomination has more pros than cons.

As with any denomination, we can be caretakers of tradition rather than spreaders of the gospel. If we spent more time trying to live as Christ taught us rather than bicker with and fight with each other in denominational politics, we would truly present the Christ of the scriptures to the world. As it is now, the squeaky wheel will always get the oil, and those who yell the loudest will receive the most attention, regardless of their message.

Thanks for a great question, based on a duet of intriguing quotes. Allow me to offer a third from one who struggled with denominations:

“I often [wondered]…Who of all these parties [denominations] are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be aright, which is it, and how shall I know it?…[God spoke to me and said] that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong…all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.”

I haven’t the slightest interest in defending denominationalism per se. I do, however, have profound reservations in simplistically dismissing structural necessities like sound administration, proper protocol, stringent policy-making, high-water qualifications, and etc., too often disguising such dismissal, unfortunately, by arguing for the “simple” gospel. No one I know, either in or out of denominational service, desires less than those who criticize the “machine” that the gospel stands preeminent among us.

Nor, in my estimation at least, do denominational employees consider they serve more the denomination than they do the Lord–albeit the frustration at times “jumping through the hoops” to get things done.

And, to insist because some do, remains entirely unfair to the multitudes who don’t. In other words, being a denominational worker is decidedly not a sufficient cause to produce an unhealthy serve-the-denomination-not-the-Lord spiritual status.

By the way, in case one may not know–I am not a denominational employee ;^)

@Peter: Thanks for the comments. I only know a few denominational employees personally, and they are all earnest in working as unto the Lord. But then again none of them were in positions of great authority or temptation.

I have to say, my brother, you are the first person, in 3+ years who’s not blown a fuse over the little sign-off I’ve sprinkled across blogdom. I’ve been cussed at, spit at (cyberly speaking), and mocked by both friend and foe. I’ve had emails from faithful readers beg me to stop doing it, that it was driving them nuts!

A brother from OK came up to me in Indy at the SBC last year. I did not know him but he knew me. He said something like: “I read you regularly. All your posts. But may I ask a favor? Please stop signing off “with that, I am…”! I’m not going to stop reading you if you don’t. But I have to tell you, I hate it.”

One just never knows :^)

By the way, I keep your site in my reader. Ya’ll have had some very good posts. Grace, Matt.

Your comment is simply not true. Do you not see that Baptist Distinctives are nothing more than what the Bible teaches? That the Gospel is a Baptist Distinctive? We preach and teach that salvation is by the grace of God thru faith…that Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died on the cross for our sins, was raised on the third day, and ascended back to the Father…that the way to recieve God’s gift of salvation is thru repentance and faith. Those are Baptist Distintives, as well as immersion is the true form of baptism, and Believers only should be baptised, and it should be a symbollic act of obedience-that it has no saving power whatsoever. That’s a Baptist Distinctive. Would you not say that that is also a Bible Distinctive?

I just do not understand you and others who somehow feel that Baptist Distinctives are not Bible teachings…what we, as Baptists, have held to for years and years and years as the correct way to view these Bible doctrines.

Catching up on my reading here, so I’m a little late in posting, but I’d say we need to be careful when we say “Baptist Distinctives”. If they are Biblical, why not say “Christian Distinctives”? The word “distinctive” indicates that this is what makes us different than others. What part of SBC ecclesiology isn’t shared by another denomination? If we say that we are indeed different in some way that another particular denomination, then are we prepared to say that that denomination is unbiblical to the extent that we must question that they are even Christan? No. We at least have an idea of theological non-negotiables even if we within the SBC don’t entirely agree on what they are. That said…

The other side of the coin is that defending the denomination against apostates is where theologically sound leadership and teaching appears to go off course. Sometimes reactive teaching can become unbalanced, but even when it doesn’t it’s easy to criticize people who come down against false teaching with such sentiments as, “We should be focused more on evangelism than all this infighting.” I wonder if Christ should have been more interested in preaching in the wilderness than condemning the pharisees. Even as the shepherd goes out to find his lost sheep, he still must be about the business of defending the flock against wolves, bears and lions.

The thing about any denominational leader defending truth is that it tends to be done with denominational authority as much as biblical authority. There are benefits and drawbacks to this. Inasmuch as the denomination is seen by church members as a point of unity, it is beneficial for them to make reference to the denomination. The drawback is that most denominational leaders themselves only have the experience of one denomination and don’t effectively communicate ministerially outside of those denominational lines.

Baptist Distinctives not found in other denominations;
1. Autonomy of local church
2,. Priesthood of believer
3. Believer’s Baptism only as a testimony one has received Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection as his own.

Are you saying that other denominations do not hold these items exactly the same as baptists in general, and Southern Baptists in particular? If so, do you mean that the differences are merely rhetorical or are they more substantive?

For example, I was baptized in the Church of the Brethren my family attended in my youth. They hold to Believer’s Baptism although they don’t particularly use those same words: a rhetorical difference. They also practice Trine Baptism which would be an odd concept to baptists: a substantive, albeit tangential, difference.

I can think of several other congregational denominations although their method of association between autonomous churches differs.

I spent some years with a Lutheran church and know that they (at least the conservative wing) teach the Priesthood of Believers.

All I was saying is that there is nothing distinctive to baptists that isn’t shared with at least one other denomination. That’s not to say that our particular combination of “distinctives” are identical to that of some other denomination (although I wonder what difference there may be between Southern Baptists and Independent Baptists other than their criticism that Southern Baptists aren’t congregational enough). But if the issue comes down to theological precision, denominational statements tend to be general enough to compensate for some lateral differences in understanding between fellow members. That’s generally where apostates gain their initial foothold and eventually challenge not merely distinctives, but tenets central to the Christian faith. And that’s where I moved on the rest of my earlier discourse.

What I didn’t write but rather thought was that an understanding of conservative arguments against apostates made in other denominations, while founded on slightly differing ecclesiological presuppositions, may be instructive where cross-denominational distinctives overlap. I didn’t say it because I’m not prepared to give observed examples yet. But I offer it here only as a matter of theoretical consideration.

I’m somewhat surprised that a discussion on denominations makes no mention that “denomination” is from the Latin “de nomine” or “from the name”. Most denominations are exactly that, they are groups that have denominated from an earlier group. Lutherans and Anglicans denominated from the Catholic Church at Rome. Methodists and English Baptists denominated from the already denominated Anglicans. As many of the autonomous Baptist and Evangelical churches in America were initially founded by Methodist circuit riders and immigrant English Baptists, a case could be made for their denomination. When a group splits from their current congregation and splits to form a new congregation based on a difference in belief they too have denominated. The new group usually takes a new name making the denomination complete.

Of course, the answer is to reverse the many denominations and reunify into the one visible Church established by Christ. Of course the sin of pride gets in the way and unity is not achieved. All is not lost. Based on the declining memberships of various denominations, it seems that Christ may be reversing the Great Denomination His way.

This is an interesting discussion. As a lay-person, I for one am grateful for the hedge of doctrinal protection the SBC provides. After all, there ARE some practices and beliefs that are simply unacceptable to me as a believer and I appreciate being able to readily associate with others who subscribe to the same ideas.

As far as evangelism and missions, those are important and needful, but we still need to mindful of keeping our own houses in order. I think we are capable of doing both at the same time…if not then the absence of one will cause the other to fail as well.

Doug,
Good observations. Denominational splits tend to be the result of doctrinal error on one or both sides. And no denominational reunification should ever take place at the expense of core doctrinal truth. So we need to be as faithful as possible to rightly discern, evaluate, and apply the truth revealed in the scriptures so as to be on guard against deception.

And I would go even further in your comment about evangelism and missions by saying that keeping the local church in order involves being faithful to fulfill the Great Commission. The two are generally inextricable.

Does your church want new members? -- 21 Comments
William Thornton I agree with you on the list. Several of them are big church things. An average church probably....
Karen I agree wholeheartedly with this post. The point is, don’t put all the responsibility on visitors and/or....
John Fariss I was traveling with my son on a Sunday some 30 years ago (maybe going to a funeral back home–I....